Tag: Nakazawa

The English translation of the Barefoot Gen Series has been completed and is awaiting production release! Nakazawa plans to present a set of the series #1 – #10 to Barack Obama wishing to prompt against nuclear proliferation. Parts of the new English translation have already been released with an introduction by Art Spiegelman, who has compared the work to his own work, Maus
(which is about the experiences of Spiegelman’s father during the Holocaust in Europe). Last Gasp will soon release all ten volumes and will hopefully produce a complete set series.

Barefoot Gen (はだしのゲン Hadashi no Gen) is a Japanese manga series by Keiji Nakazawa. Hadashi no Gen was originally serialized beginning in 1973 in the mass-market manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump (Shūkan Shōnen Jampu), which had earlier been published as Nakazawa’s autobiographical Hiroshima story “Ore wa Mita” (“I Saw It”). It was canceled after a year and a half, and moved to three other less widely distributed magazines: Shimin (Citizen), Bunka Hyōron (Cultural Criticism), and Kyōiku Hyōron (Educational Criticism). It was published in book collections in Japan beginning in 1975. A volunteer organization, Project Gen, formed in 1976 to produce English translations, which were released in four volumes. This made Barefoot Gen one of the first ever manga to be released in English.

Barefoot Gen was adapted into three live action film adaptations directed by Tengo Yamada, which were released between 1976 and 1980. Madhouse released two anime films, one in 1983 and one in 1987. In 2007, a live action television drama series adaptation aired in Japan on Fuji TV over two nights, August 10 and 11.

The series begins in 1945 in and around Hiroshima, Japan, where the six-year-old boy Gen lives with his family. After Hiroshima is destroyed by atomic bombing, Gen and other survivors are left to deal with the aftermath. The story is loosely based on Nakazawa’s own experiences as a Hiroshima survivor.